Eye of the Hurricane
by myshipsaresunk
Summary: In the eye of the hurricane there is quiet. But this time the quiet is drowning Robbie Reyes, reminding him of his shortcomings and mistakes - until she comes and suddenly he can breathe again. Maybe the hurricane isn't so bad, after all.


**Disclaimer:** All rights belong to Disney, Marvel, and all the men and women that created the _Agents of SHIELD_ TV shows, and comics. I take no credit, and I do not mean to break any copyright rules. This is simply a work of fiction made for enjoyment. No money is being made.

 **Rating:** T dark themes and mentions of violence

 **Author's Note:** I wrote this because 1) there is not enough Quakerider (?) fanfiction around and Daisy and Robbie are my newest OTP and 2) because I love Robbie Reyes so much and feel he as a character needs to be explored in writing. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this little one-shot set after episode 5, I believe.

Also, if you want to read more Quakerider, you can check out my AU fanfic of them, called "A World On Fire"

 **Eye of the Hurricane**

In the eye of the hurricane there is quiet. After all the action that's happened, seemingly centered around him, Robbie is in a calm moment.

The week had started out normal, with him going to work at the mechanic shop in the day, having a nice evening with his younger brother, Gabe, and then tracking down criminals in the night, motivated by the devil inside him.

Then _she_ had come. The devil had tried to fight her at first, but she was innocent. When it stopped attacking her, Robbie had continued. She had seen much, after all. But lying there, bruised and beaten, and _begging_ him to kill her -

No. Robbie deals in vengeance, not suicide. Just in case she had been honest about deserving death, he'd checked up on her. _Nada._ Her record is clean, other than a couple minor offenses.

So why did she want to die?

Not his problem. However, when those ghost scientist's from his _tio_ 's past started popping up and she and her friends were in hot pursuit, he knew there was something big going on. Even bigger than his own devil-employed mission.

He began to get used to her presence - Daisy is annoyingly persistent, but her determination is also admirable. She doesn't need the devil inside her to take care of criminals. When those thugs threatened Gabe during the blackout, she fought hard, despite her arm and shoulder slowly shattering due to the pressure of her powers.

She's such a paradox, that girl. She claims to want to die but she fights to survive. She has the look and attitude of a gangster, but her name - and what Robbie has encountered of her personality - is sweet and almost delicate. She fights to protect people she cares about yet she hurts them by distancing herself from them.

And even though she's dedicated to unraveling the ghost scientist mystery, she's slowly killing herself along the way. When she had to use her powers to fight off those thugs, she broke her arm badly. Instead of waiting until Robbie had come back with medication and supplies, she had left. And right after trying to partner up with him for so long.

Then on the SHIELD aircraft, when they were hiding in the containment module. Daisy had helped fabricate lies to trick Gabe, but when Robbie decided to tell the truth, it was her that convinced him to keep talking even when the words refused to come out.

Who is she really?

Robbie sighs, running his calloused hands along the rough leather of the steering wheel. He's hiding in Lucy, the only quiet place on the bustling _Zephyr._ He has a lot more problems that just figuring out one rogue SHIELD agent, though.

One thing that keeps pestering him is his feeble control over Ghost Rider. The devil inside him has only proved to ruin his life. Gabe doesn't need him; that boy is smarter than his entire class and most college students, too. Gabe made peace with his new lifestyle.

But Robbie? Not so much. He can't control the devil, and vengeance hasn't brought him any peace. It just makes his life more complicated.

Like in the jail, when he lost control and couldn't keep the other guy from breaking out and killing the last member of Fifth Street. Robbie knows that his mistake is the reason the Mace guy figured out he and Daisy were on board. Somehow the security cameras in the prison must have picked up the murder.

And in the containment module, after they'd been discovered. The devil saw Mace and picked up on _something._ Whatever it was, it wanted to destroy that man. And Robbie couldn't stop it from taking over him. Only Gabe's voice had overpowered the devil.

And then Gabe had turned away in horror and scorn, leaving his brother's presence. Robbie and Gabe had once been inseparable, but now they're unable to be in the same room without fighting.

Maybe that's the real reason Robbie's hiding in here. He had tried to talk to his brother, but the boy had sent him away with harsh words that cut deep into the abyss where Robbie's soul once resided.

It used to be Robbie and Gabe against the world. Now it's Robbie against Gabe and the world.

Anger fills Robbie and he slams his first into the dashboard. It's not fair, not at all. Robbie came back to help his brother, not hurt him. How did he make such a mess out of everything?

The passenger door suddenly opens, and Daisy slides in next to him. He fixes her with a glare; now is _not_ the time for her stubbornness. He wants some peace, not another fight.

She stays silent, though, staring straight out the windshield at the gray walls of the _Zephyr._ After a few moments of quiet, he's the one to break it. "What are you doing here?"

She looks over at him, a grim smile on her face. "Well, I'm not exactly welcomed around here, either, right now."

"Why not? You are an agent, or at least you used to be. And the others like you."

"I'm bad PR. And Mace hates me. If his best agents weren't my friends I'd be in the Fridge already." At seeing his confused expression, she elaborates, "The Fridge is where they keep high profile and dangerous people. Basically a super prison."

"Are they going to send me there once this is all over?" Robbie knows he won't get out of punishment for what he did to Mace. Not that he trusts that man for one second. At least Coulson is down-to-earth and realistic. Mace is a politician through-and-through.

"I don't think it's secure enough to hold you when you go all hot-headed," Daisy admits. "Those containment modules are the strongest things we have and you broke through it easily. Speaking of which, why were you so eager to get out? I don't like Mace, either, but I'm not stupid enough to try and beat him up."

"It isn't me," Robbie explains, his fists clenching at his sides in frustration. "I told you, the devil is inside me. When it sees someone who is evil, it just bursts out of me to claim their soul."

"Then why would it feel the need to get at Jeffrey Mace?" Daisy muses. "He's hiding something."

"I don't care. It's not my business."

She turns back to him, and whatever she sees makes her features soften. "I heard what your brother said. He didn't mean it."

Robbie turns away from her to stare straight ahead. "Gabe is always honest."

"You know why I left that night? After the blackout?"

Robbie doesn't respond.

"It's because Gabe made me. He feels it's his responsibility to look out for you, and he was worried that I was a bad influence on you, so he got rid of me. But how can he protect you when the threat is coming from inside you?"

Robbie exhales and shakes his head. "He can't."

"Exactly. Right now he's trying to figure out how to do the impossible, and it's frustrating him. He needs time to work through things."

"But what if he can't work through this one? It's more than just a small bad decision." Robbie knows Gabe would rather him be dead than be Satan's little puppet. Hell, if their roles had been switched that night, Robbie would rather have to bury Gabe than see him reincarnated as the devil.

"Family will always come through." When he looks over at her, he sees a wistful look in her eyes.

"You never told me your story," he says. "You never said why you deserve to die and why you distance yourself from your friends."

"It's not one I like to tell."

"And my story was any different?"

After a long moment, she nods. "Okay. So I grew up being bounced around foster homes. I wasn't exactly a model child. By the time I was eighteen I was a hacker living out of my van. SHIELD found me there, and eventually I became an agent. My CO - " Here she pauses for a minute, smiling to herself. "I was young and stupid. I fell for him, and he liked me back. The only problem was that he turned out to be part of a neo-nazi terrorist organization not long later."

"Those still exist?"

"We took it down. I shot him several times in the process. It was fun."

Robbie raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment.

"I found my real parents not long after, but the whole thing was a mess. My dad, Cal, well...he was a mad scientist, kinda like Lucy Bauer. Except his thing was that he wanted a superpower, so he injected himself with a homemade serum that turned him into Mr. Hyde. My mom was more stable. She ran a safe haven for Inhumans - she was one, herself. While I was at this safe haven, I met a guy, Lincoln."

She stops again, but this time she looks pained, as if she'd just stabbed herself.

"Anyways, it turns out I was completely wrong. My mom's power was that she could stay young and alive forever - by draining the life forces of other people. She was a mass murderer. My father was actually the good one, and he cared about me. When I became a threat to my mom's ambitious plans and she tried to kill me by taking my life forces, it was my dad that saved me."

"Where's he now?"

Daisy shrugs. "We had to wipe his memories. He got a second chance at life , but not one with me in it. I think he owns a pet store."

She doesn't seem bothered by his fate in the least, Robbie notes. So it must be something with that other guy that's killing her.

"And what about Lincoln?"

Daisy's small hands form fists and she turns away from him, but not before he sees the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

Robbie remembers how she had laid a hand on his leg when he had been struggling to tell his story hours earlier and how it had helped him, so he returns the favor now. Daisy turns to him, takes a deep breath, and continues.

"He was a doctor."

"Is that why you don't like to go see a doctor when you get hurt?"

"Partly. It does remind me of him." She glances outside at the aircraft's walls again. "It wasn't supposed to be him. I had a plan, but he messed it all up."

Robbie doesn't need to know the details to figure out what had happened. "You made a plan to save your friends from whatever the threat was, at the cost of your life."

She nods. "Lincoln sacrificed himself instead. I remember talking to him as he -" She shakes her head. "It should have been me."

"That doesn't mean you deserve to die. He wouldn't have sacrificed himself to save you if he didn't think your life was worth living."

"It wasn't his decision to make. I've lost so much that losing him was the final blow. Everyone around me ends up dead."

Robbie knows that feeling. At least she isn't the one doing the killing herself, though. Robbie has no excuse. He begged for his life, and he got it back - at a high cost.

"If you want to throw your life away, go ahead, but don't claim that you deserve to die. Those gang members who shot my brother and I? They deserve to die. Not you."

"But it's like I'm cursed." Daisy opens her mouth to say more, but when she glances at him she stops. "Nevermind. I guess I really don't have anything to complain about, not compared to you, at least." She moves her uninjured hand and lightly sets it on top of his hand on her leg.

"Comparing your life to someone else's does nothing." Robbie stares at their hands, wondering when he first began to trust her. He doesn't trust people easily, but Daisy just kind of creeps in until you don't even realize you've told her everything.

He likes being able to trust someone. "Just stop trying to get yourself killed, okay? Your team needs you more than you think. And your life is worth more than you know."

"You really think so?" she asks, a gleam of what he thinks is hope shining in them.

"Yeah."

She nods, leaning back in her seat. "Didn't you say you think the whole flame-on part of you would disappear once you avenged you and your brother?"

"It might."

"Then you should be really close to finally living a normal life again." When she gives him her reassuring smile, he's almost tempted to believe it.

But he's put years of thought into it. "Even if it leaves, Gabe will still be upset that I kept this a secret for so long. He won't forget how I looked when the devil took over."

"But he'll forgive you eventually. He truly loves you, so he'll one day understand why you kept it from him."

"I don't think it will leave me, though." Robbie doesn't know why he's admitting his fears to this girl who is barely more than a stranger, but something about it just feels right.

"What do you mean? You think you'll always be destined to take out criminals?"

"I think once I finish avenging us I'll die." Robbie swallows. "It gave me several more years of my life, but the reason I was given a second chance was to right those wrongs against my brother and I. I doubt the devil will just leave me."

Daisy looks straight ahead at the dashboard, a defeated look on her face. Her hand grips his tighter. "Oh."

"I hoped Gabe would never find out about the deal I'd made. He'd only have to lose me once that way. But now that he knows the truth he'll know he never really got me back that night." Robbie sighs and rests his head in his free hand.

"Then you need to make it up to him _now_ , before we finish getting Lucy Bauer and anyone else she's involved with. I'm sure if you talk to him you can work things out."

"Gabe won't talk to me, though. And I'm not going to wait on finishing my job here forever. The devil won't wait, at least."

Daisy doesn't hesitate. She pops open the car door and steps one foot out. "I'm going to talk to him right now."

"What?" Robbie frowns. Why is she doing this? Why does she care about some guy who sold his soul to the devil who can't sort out his problems with his kid brother?

"The last time you talk to the person who means the most to you in life shouldn't be seconds before they die. Trust me, it sucks."

Robbie can't swallow past the lump in his throat. Her kindness puts his whole life to shame. Before she is completely out of the car he grabs her hand. "Thanks."

Daisy smiles a little. "It's the least I would do for any of my friends."

Robbie watches her until she's out of sight. He had thought this quiet moment was in the eye of the hurricane, but he's realizing how wrong he is. Because all the things going on in his life isn't the hurricane - it's _her_. Daisy's the hurricane. And every moment away from her is the eye, the calm moments.

He isn't sure he likes these calm moments. Sometimes being swept up in the storm is enough to forget how bad life really is. And sometimes it gives you hope.


End file.
